(As The Husband said to me the other night, as I was going on about this: "These challenges sound like the literary equivalent of Fantasy Football." And you know what? He's so right. Never again will I make fun of him playing Fantasy Football or Baseball or whatever else. You get your fun where you can, and in my world, my fun comes from reading challenges. So there.)

Here are my latest challenges. I think I'm done with all of my choices and strategizing now. Maybe.

I'm going for the Fascinated level (6 e-books) with this one, but hopefully will read more (especially since I've downloaded about 150 free classics since Christmas Day.)

I participated in the Essay Reading Challenge last year and am thrilled it is back again for 2011. This one goes from January 1, 2011 to November 30, 2011 and has three levels. You can choose to read 10, 20, or 20 essays. I'm going for the 10 essays level again, which is what I did this year. (I read Gravity Pulls You In: Perspectives on Raising Children on the Autism Spectrum, edited by Kyra Anderson and Vicki Forman)

Serena is hosting the Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge and really, I can't imagine anyone better to host this one, which is even easier than my Memorable Memoir Challenge. One book of poetry is all that's required. One! For me, 2010 was the year that I rediscovered poetry. This challenge almost feels like cheating to me because I would have read one book of poetry anyway in 2011.

One thing we all have in common is the need to eat food. Some of us also have a strong need/desire to read about food. I’m one of them, are you? Such people are known as Foodies – people who love to talk, read, watch food tv, or anything else with a food theme.

If that description fits you, I invite you to join me in the Foodie’s Reading Challenge for 2011. Together we’ll explore the world of good food writing. That may take the form of a cookbook or a biography or even a novel centered around food.

I have several such books out from the library right now, so I am going to be ambitious with this one and go for the Glutton (more than 12) level, especially since cookbooks count. Plus, it will help me generate posts for Weekend Cooking.

The idea behind this is to find new authors that you’ve never tried before. They can be in your genre of choice or be brave and try something new. You never know what you’re going to like until you try it.

Guidelines: Since this is an author challenge, there is no restriction on choosing your novels. They can definitely be from other challenges. However, the authors must be new to you and, preferably from novels. Anthologies are a great way to try someone new, but only a third of your new authors can be from anthologies.You can pick to do either 15, 25 or 50 new authors. It all depends on how fast you read and how adventurous you want to be.

I'm going for the 15 New Authors level.

My friend Zee from Notes from the North is hosting the Nordic Challenge. Any book by any author born in a Nordic country (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and/or Sweden) or a book set in a Nordic country are allowed for this challenge. Books can be from any genre. Since I have I Curse the River of Time currently out from the library, I thought I'd might as well join this one because the levels are definitely doable.

Read a book(s)--non-fiction or fiction of any genre, adult or young adult--written by an author from the South and set mostly in the South.

The states considered to be the South for this challenge are South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Texas and Florida--as long as you find a book by a Florida author and/or set in Florida that feels Southern.

This is one of the challenges I'm most excited about as I love, love, love Southern literature. LOVE. IT. Hence, I'm going for Level 4 with this one.

Have you joined or are you planning to join any of these challenges?

copyright 2010, Melissa (Betty and Boo's Mommy, The Betty and Boo Chronicles) If you are reading this on a blog or website other than The Betty and Boo Chronicles or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

3 comments:

Oh, c'mon, how about just one more? I've got a Michigan Notable Books reading challenge going on over on my blog -- it's open to people in any state -- just sign up to read 2 books from a list of 20 and you could possibly win a $50 gift certificate: http://bit.ly/dFEegP

LOL!! I'm doing the same thing...getting crazier and crazier as we get closer to Jan. 1!! I was already signing up for the Audio Book Challenge, the Foodie Challenge, and the Ebook challenge; you've convinced me to take the plunge on the Southern Literature challenge and I may even just go on ahead and sign up for the Memorable Memoir challenge...Oy!! I do need to figure out a strategy though so all of this craziness will work out for me!!